You Know, You Can Steel Your Heart

I Didn't Leave Africa, I Left Nigeria, And For Political Reasons. But ... I've Never, Never Left Africa, And I Certainly Never Left What It Means To Be Ibo. That Is Something You Carry With You.

Fiction Is More Dangerous Than Nonfiction Because It Can Seduce Better. I Think We All Know This, Know That Deeper Truths Can Be Approached In Fiction Than In Fact. There Are Risks For The Reader, Because After Reading Certain Books You Find You Have Changed Irreversibly. There Are Risks For Writers: In China, Now, And Ethiopia And Other Countries Right Now, Writers Face Real Persecution.

The Greatest Thing About Form And Convention Is That It Saves You From Having To Reinvent The Wheel. Now, Whether You Mount The Wheel To A Horse Carriage Or A Formula One Racing Car, Make It Plain Or Give It Spinning Rims, Those Are All Craft Decisions. But The Fact Of The Wheel Remains: It Will Turn If You Set It Down. That's What I Mean About The Beauty Of The Gifts Genre Can Offer.

I Truly Believe That Writing Is A Continuum--so The Different Genres And Forms Are Simply Stops Along The Same Continuum. Different Ideas That Need To Be Expressed Sometimes Require Different Forms For The Ideas To Float Better.

Here's The Thing: You Rescue Us Every Day In Small, Quiet Ways, So Why Not In This Way? Let Us Into Your Mystery, Tell Us How You Would Like To Be Loved, Show Us How To See You, Really See You.